HOBOKEN – Tomorrow afternoon, Mario's Classic Pizza Cafe will be serving free Thanksgiving dinners to anyone who shows up at the door.

As usual on Thanksgiving, the pizzeria at Eighth and Garden streets will be offering turkey with all the trimmings -- stuffing, sweet potatoes and other vegetables -- from 1 to 7 p.m.

But after 12 years of tradition, it almost didn't happen this year, owner Mario Albunia told The Jersey Journal this afternoon.

Today was the first day since Hurricane Sandy soaked the Mile Square City on Oct. 29 that Albunia was able to open his restaurant.

“Thank God, we are open,'' Albunia said.

Albunia only put out a sign offering the holiday dinners yesterday because he wasn't sure he'd be able to open in time.

"We have been closed since the storm,'' he said. "My goal was to open in time for Thanksgiving. ... It's going to make me and my family feel good.''

Albunia has 10 turkeys to cook, down from 16 last year, which he said was his busiest Thanksgiving to date with 160 diners. Normally, the turkeys are donated, but this year Albunia bought five of them himself.

If he runs out of turkey, he might start making pies -- pizza pies, that is.

The basement where Albunia stores his stock was under 2 feet of water in the storm, Albunia said. He immediately cleaned and sanitized the basement and bought new refrigerators, a freezer, an ice maker, a walk-in cooler and other equipment to replace what was destroyed, he said.

“It was a mess,'' he said. "The worst thing was the flour and water. ... It turns into dough.”

Like many Hoboken business owners, he is finding he has to fight with his insurance company, which does not want to pay because he did not have flood insurance.

He says his restaurant was not flooded but rather fell victim to a sewer backup and he plans to hire a lawyer if necessary.

He rejected loans being offered by the Small Business Administration with 4 percent interest on a 30-year repayment, saying business owners don't need loans, they need grants.

A friend, the owner of Carmine's Pizza in Brooklyn, sent him $1,300 worth of food as a donation but he said he couldn't take it and sent it back.

"I just couldn't do it,'' he said.

Yesterday, one customer from the neighborhood -- delighted to see the cafe open again -- opened the door and said she would be ordering pizza tonight.

“We always loved Mario's,'' she said.

The idea for the Thanksgiving dinner came after he told his wife, Deanna, that he would rather stay home for the holidays than travel.

The Yankees fan said the first year he prepared one turkey with a friend and watched ball games and it took off from there. Now his staff, wife and three boys -- ages 14, 16 and 19 -- are drafted to help out.